Biology of the Red Abalone, Haliotis Rufescens, in Northern California
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UC San Diego Research Theses and Dissertations Title Biology of the Red Abalone, Haliotis rufescens, in Northern California Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2n19n4s1 Author Leaf, Robert T. Publication Date 2005-12-01 Supplemental Material https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2n19n4s1#supplemental Peer reviewed eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California BIOLOGY OF THE RED ABALONE, HALIOTIS RUFESCENS, IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of the Department of Marine Science San Jose State University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Science by Robert Thomas Leaf December 2005 © 2005 Robert Thomas Leaf ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ABSTRACT BIOLOGY OF THE RED ABALONE, HALIOTIS RUFESCENS, IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA By Robert Thomas Leaf The red abalone, Haliotis rufescens Swainson 1822, supports the only recreational free-dive abalone fishery in the United States. I examined annual survivorship of three size classes (< 100 mm, 100.1 to 178 mm, and > 178 mm) of red abalone from five sites in northern California and one site in southern California using capture-mark-recapture data. Survival was variable spatially and among size classes. Survivorship values were incorporated into a size based projection matrix model. Elasticity values were found to be greatest for the sub-legal red abalone 150 mm to 178 mm (maximum shell length) indicating that changes in the vital rates of this size class are most important to population growth. Current methods to describe the age-at-length relationship of red abalone are insufficient because shell lengths exceed those predicted by growth models. I 14 evaluated the utility of analyzing atomic bomb generated radioisotope C in shell to validate this relationship. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work has been made by possible by the support and assistance of numerous people and organizations. First and foremost I would like to thank California SeaGrant Program # R/CZ-69PD TR, The American Museum of Natural History Lerner-Gray Fund for Marine Research, and the Dr. Earl H. Myers and Ethel M. Myers Oceanographic and Marine Biology Trust. Each provided research funding, without which this work would not have been possible. Because of the variety of aspects of population biology addressed in this work a diverse group of people were responsible for the improvement and completion of each section. I would especially like to thank Dr. Henry Mollet, Dr. Tom Ebert, and Dr. Laura Rogers-Bennett who were invaluable for the matrix population modeling work. Dr. Tomo Eguchi provided help in the construction and selection of survivorship models. Pete Haaker very generously let me evaluate his data from southern California. Dr. Greg Cailliet, Lisa Kerr, and Allen Andrews provided the impetus and enthusiasm to carry out radiocarbon sampling. I have been fortunate to have two homes during my time at Moss Landing, the Ichthyology and Benthic Labs. Both contributed to my graduate education immensely. Aaron Carlisle, Wade Smith, and Chris Rinewalt in the Ichthyology Lab and Aroon Melwani, Rhea Sanders, Linda Kuhnz, Peter Slattery, Dr. Stacy Kim, Jim Oakden, Dr. John Oliver, Kamille Hammerstrom , and Andrew Thurber in the Benthic Lab provided support, encouragement, and a place to call home throughout my graduate education. The wonderful community at Moss Landing, especially Gail Johnston, Donna Kline, Joan Parker and all of the library staff went beyond the call duty v to expedite the completion of this project. I am especially indebted to Dr. Greg Cailliet who has been supportive of my myriad of thesis proposals and provided my first introduction to population and fishery biology. He has provided support for this project and encouragement to pursue future graduate work. I would not have done either without his council and support. Dr. Laura Rogers-Bennett provided the opportunity to work on abalone through a SeaGrant traineeship. She is a generous pioneer in abalone biology and allowed me the use of her and California Department of Fish and Game data. I cannot thank her enough for the support and mentoring provided to me for the duration of this project. Dr. Jon Geller generously became a member of my committee and I very much appreciate his comments and suggestions of my manuscript. It was greatly improved by his efforts. In addition to the institutional support I received I have been extremely fortunate to have the indefatigable support of my family: Sierra, my Mom, Tony, and Scott. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE List of Tables………………………………………………………………………….... ix List of Figures…………………………………………………………………………....xi CHAPTER 1: Size-based annual survival probabilities for three size classes of red abalone, Haliotis rufescens, using mark-recapture data from northern and southern California………………………………………………………....1 ABSTRACT…….……………………………………………………………………….. 2 INTRODUCTION.…………………………………………………………………….… 3 METHODS…...………………………………………………………………………….. 5 RESULTS………………………………………………………..………………………..9 DISCUSSION..…………………………………………………………………………..13 LITERATURE CITED…..………………………………………………………………18 CHAPTER 2: A size-based projection matrix model and elasticity analysis of red abalone, Haliotis rufescens, in northern California…………………….……....... 33 ABSTRACT…………………………..………………………………………………… 34 INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………….35 METHODS……………………………………………………………………………....37 RESULTS…………………………………………………………………………….….45 DISCUSSION……………………………………………………………………………48 LITERATURE CITED…………………………………………………………………. 53 vii PAGE CHAPTER 3: Preliminary validation of the age-at-length relationship of red abalone, Haliotis rufescens, by analysis of bomb radiocarbon in shell carbonate…………………………………………………………………….…. 68 ABSTRACT…….………………………………………………………….………….....69 INTRODUCTION…….………………………………………………………………... 70 METHODS……………………………...…………………………………………….... 72 RESULTS………………………………………………………………………………..75 DISCUSSION……………………………………………………………………………76 LITERATURE CITED…………………………………………………………………..79 viii LIST OF TABLES TABLE PAGE CHAPTER 1 1. Site-specific CMR (capture-mark-recapture) summary statistics for red abalone tagged and recaptured in northern and southern California at North Cabrillo Pt. Cove (NC), South Cabrillo Pt. Cove (SC), Van Damme State Park (VD), Point Arena (PA) and Fort Ross State Park (FR),and the one southern California site; Johnsons Lee (JL). datei is the median date of tagged red abalone caught at census period i , zi is the number of abalone captured before census occasion i . mi is the number or after census occasion i but not during the i th period, Ri is the number of tagged abalone released at occasion i , and mi is the number of tagged individuals captured at census occasion i . …………... ………………………………………….……21 2. Characteristics of red abalone study populations for the five northern California sites; North Cabrillo Pt. Cove (NC), South Cabrillo Pt. Cove (SC), Van Damme State Park (VD), Point Arena (PA) and Fort Ross State Park (FR), and one southern California site; Johnsons Lee (JL).……………………………………....... ……23 3. Summary of goodness-of-fit (GOF) tests and binomial dipersion () values of recapture history data for size partitioned recapture history data at each site. Test 2 and Test 3 are those of Program Release (Burnham et al. 1987). values are calculated as (global model deviance/mean of resampled model deviance)…………..…….…24 4. Model selection table of recapture history data from each site with values less than 3.0 and non-significant Release goodness-of-fit values. Recapture history data from NC (100 to 178 mm) and JL (100 to 178 mm) failed Test 3 but were included in CMR analysis. Candidate models for each size class in each site are in order of descending QAIC value……..………........25 CHAPTER 2 1. Summary of capture mark recapture (CMR) statistics at sites from northern California from Schultz and DeMartini and Rogers-Bennett and Pearse (2004)………….........................................................58 ix TABLE PAGE 2. Goodness-of-fit test and model deviance of capture-mark-recapture histories from north Cabrillo Point (n = 746). Results derived from Program Release GOF (Burnham et al. 1987). values are the mean deviance of parametric resamples divided by the global model, tpt, deviance…………………………………………………... 59 3. Summary of information for model selection of competing models from capture-mark-recapture histories from north Cabrillo Cove. Estimates of the mean and variance of survival from models with equivalent model fits (QAICc < 2) (Burnham and Anderson 1998) were derived using their model AICc values as a weighting factor……………………………………………….60 4. Annual growth transition probabilities of marked individuals. Columns are the length of an individual abalone at first census and rows are their sizes one year later. For example an individual starting in the 25.1 to 50 mm size class has a 50% probability of remaining in the size class and a 50% probability of transitioning to the next size class, 50.1 to 75 mm, after one year. ……………………………………………………………………61 5. Size structured transition matrix of red abalone for northern California based on mean survival (px), growth transitions (gx), and fecundity (fx). Cells in the first row in columns with size classes > 100.1 mm represent (gx x p0). Cells in the diagonal and sub diagonal are gx multiplied by size specific survivorship………………..62 x LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE PAGE CHAPTER 1 1. Map of northern (A) and southern (B) California study sites where tag-recapture work was performed. See text for geographic coordinates of each study site………………………………………………...….27